Virtual chat rooms

ABSTRACT

One or more computing devices, systems, and/or methods for hosting virtual chat rooms of a chat room are provided. For example, users (e.g., 3,000 users) may access video interfaces, hosting a video, and chat room interfaces associated with a chat room for the video (e.g., users may access a news website providing a live stream of a current event along with a chat room for discussing the live stream). Signals of the users (e.g., a user location, age, account profile information, prior chat room message behavior, etc.) are evaluated to identify user properties (e.g., the user is an active participant within chat rooms). The chat room may be sharded into a set of virtual chat rooms into which users are assigned based upon the user properties (e.g., 300 virtual chat rooms of 100 users each). In this way, users may have more meaningful interactions within the smaller virtual chat rooms.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 16/159,913, filed on Oct. 15, 2018, entitled“VIRTUAL CHAT ROOMS”, which claims priority to and is a continuation ofU.S. application Ser. No. 15/161,672, filed on May 23, 2016, entitled“VIRTUAL CHAT ROOMS”. U.S. application Ser. No. 16/159,913 and U.S.application Ser. No. 15/161,672 are both incorporated herein.

BACKGROUND

Many users may consume content through user interfaces, such as a videoaccessible through a video interface. For example, the video maycomprise a movie, a television show, a live stream of a sporting event,a webcast, prerecorded video, etc. Users that are watching the video maybe provided with a chat room interface through which the users mayinteract while watching the video. For example, the users may discussthe video with other users within the chat room by writing and readingmessages through the chat room interface.

The chat room may grow to a significant number of users as more userswatch the video (e.g., thousands of users may be within a chat room fordiscussing an e-sporting event video stream). Unfortunately, the chatroom may become overwhelming to the point that users are unable to havemeaningful interactions. Users may be unable to single out and/orparticipate in a certain conversation because text of the chat room mayscroll too fast. Thus, users may become overwhelmed, and the chat roommay become useless. Also, the chat room interface may experienceperformance issues such as lag due to resource strain, such as bandwidthconsumption and client device resource consumption, from attempting tokeep the chat room interface up-to-date with all the messages beinggenerated by the thousands of users.

SUMMARY

In accordance with the present disclosure, one or more computing devicesand/or methods for hosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room areprovided. In an example, users that are accessing video interfaces,hosting a video, and chat room interfaces associated with a chat roomfor the video may be identified (e.g., 3,000 users may be watching alive stream of a sporting event through a webpage comprising a videointerface for the live stream and a chat interface for a chat roomthrough which the users may communicate about the sporting event).Signals, associated with the users, may be evaluated to identify userproperties of the users. For example, user account data (e.g., a usermay log into a service through which the video is provided), socialnetwork profile data (e.g., a user age, a user home location, a userdemographic, an interest of the user such as in soccer, a career of theuser such as a soccer coach, a social network post with an image about arestaurant, etc.), a current location of a user device, how a userpreviously interact with chat rooms (e.g., a user tends to write 0.06messages per minute and thus is a passive participant; a user tends towrite 2 messages per minute and thus is an active participant; a usertends to get into arguments with other users; etc.), keywords or grammarused by a user (e.g., the user uses a lot of exclamation points, theuser tends to use profanity, the user tends to write incompletesentences or phrases, etc.), a contact list of a user (e.g., the usermay desire to be within a virtual chat room with other friends orcontacts), and/or a variety of other signals may be used to identifyuser properties indicative of how the user may interact with other userswithin a virtual chat room (e.g., the user may be a passive participantthat uses proper grammar and tends to interact well with adults).

The chat room may be sharded (e.g., partitioned) into a set of virtualchat rooms. For example, the chat room may be sharded and/or users maybe assigned to virtual chat rooms based upon a virtual chat roomoccupancy metric (e.g., a maximum number of occupants for a virtual chatroom may be set to 100 users or any other number of users so that userscan have meaningful conversations without being overwhelmed) and/orbased upon percentages of active participants and passive participants(e.g., a virtual chat room may be defined to have a composition of about10% or any other percentage of active participants and about 90% or anyother percentage of passive participants so that the virtual chat roomis not overwhelmed with messages from too many active participants andis not too quiet from too many passive participants).

Users may be assigned to virtual chat rooms of the set of virtual chatrooms based upon the user properties. For example, users may be assignedto a virtual chat room so that the virtual chat room has no more than100 users and has a composition of about 10% or any other percentage ofactive participants and about 90% or any other percentage of passiveparticipants. In an example, if a first user and a second userpreviously interacted with one another in a chat room, then the firstuser and the second user may be assigned to the same virtual chat room.In another example, if a first user and a second user are similar in ageor location, then the first user and the second user may be assigned tothe same virtual chat room. In another example, users with similargrammar usage (e.g., the user of complete sentences or incompletesentences, the use of certain keywords, the use of proper grammar ornot, the user of statements that invoke a lot or a little reaction, theuse of long or short statements, the user of emoticons or exclamationmarks, etc.) may be assigned to the same virtual chat room. In this way,users may be assigned to virtual chat rooms to provide a chat roomcomposition that facilitates meaningful and interactive conversationsbetween users. Users may be provided with access to their assignedvirtual chat rooms through the chat room interfaces (e.g., messagesdisplayed through a chat room interface may be filtered to message ofother users assigned to the same virtual chat room).

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

While the techniques presented herein may be embodied in alternativeforms, the particular embodiments illustrated in the drawings are only afew examples that are supplemental of the description provided herein.These embodiments are not to be interpreted in a limiting manner, suchas limiting the claims appended hereto.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a scenario involving various examples ofnetworks that may connect servers and clients.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a server that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a client that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example method for hostingvirtual chat rooms for a chat room.

FIG. 5A is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where users are assigned tovirtual chat rooms.

FIG. 5B is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where a first user isreassigned from a first virtual chat room to a third virtual chat roombased upon user activity of the first user within the first virtual chatroom.

FIG. 5C is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where an nth user isreassigned from a second virtual chat room to a fifth virtual chat room.

FIG. 5D is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where a new user is assignedto a testing virtual chat room.

FIG. 5E is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where new user activity of anew user within a testing virtual chat room is monitored.

FIG. 5F is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forhosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room, where a new user is assignedto a sixth virtual chat room.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of a scenario featuring an examplenon-transitory machine readable medium in accordance with one or more ofthe provisions set forth herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, andwhich show, by way of illustration, specific example embodiments. Thisdescription is not intended as an extensive or detailed discussion ofknown concepts. Details that are known generally to those of ordinaryskill in the relevant art may have been omitted, or may be handled insummary fashion.

The following subject matter may be embodied in a variety of differentforms, such as methods, devices, components, and/or systems.Accordingly, this subject matter is not intended to be construed aslimited to any example embodiments set forth herein. Rather, exampleembodiments are provided merely to be illustrative. Such embodimentsmay, for example, take the form of hardware, software, firmware or anycombination thereof.

1. Computing Scenario

The following provides a discussion of some types of computing scenariosin which the disclosed subject matter may be utilized and/orimplemented.

1.1. Networking

FIG. 1 is an interaction diagram of a scenario 100 illustrating aservice 102 provided by a set of servers 104 to a set of client devices110 via various types of networks. The servers 104 and/or client devices110 may be capable of transmitting, receiving, processing, and/orstoring many types of signals, such as in memory as physical memorystates.

The servers 104 of the service 102 may be internally connected via alocal area network 106 (LAN), such as a wired network where networkadapters on the respective servers 104 are interconnected via cables(e.g., coaxial and/or fiber optic cabling), and may be connected invarious topologies (e.g., buses, token rings, meshes, and/or trees). Theservers 104 may be interconnected directly, or through one or more othernetworking devices, such as routers, switches, and/or repeaters. Theservers 104 may utilize a variety of physical networking protocols(e.g., Ethernet and/or Fiber Channel) and/or logical networkingprotocols (e.g., variants of an Internet Protocol (IP), a TransmissionControl Protocol (TCP), and/or a User Datagram Protocol (UDP). The localarea network 106 may include, e.g., analog telephone lines, such as atwisted wire pair, a coaxial cable, full or fractional digital linesincluding T1, T2, T3, or T4 type lines, Integrated Services DigitalNetworks (ISDNs), Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLs), wireless linksincluding satellite links, or other communication links or channels,such as may be known to those skilled in the art. The local area network106 may be organized according to one or more network architectures,such as server/client, peer-to-peer, and/or mesh architectures, and/or avariety of roles, such as administrative servers, authenticationservers, security monitor servers, data stores for objects such as filesand databases, business logic servers, time synchronization servers,and/or front-end servers providing a user-facing interface for theservice 102.

Likewise, the local area network 106 may comprise one or moresub-networks, such as may employ differing architectures, may becompliant or compatible with differing protocols and/or may interoperatewithin the local area network 106. Additionally, a variety of local areanetworks 106 may be interconnected; e.g., a router may provide a linkbetween otherwise separate and independent local area networks 106.

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the local area network 106 of the service102 is connected to a wide area network 108 (WAN) that allows theservice 102 to exchange data with other services 102 and/or clientdevices 110. The wide area network 108 may encompass variouscombinations of devices with varying levels of distribution andexposure, such as a public wide-area network (e.g., the Internet) and/ora private network (e.g., a virtual private network (VPN) of adistributed enterprise).

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the service 102 may be accessed via thewide area network 108 by a user 112 of one or more client devices 110,such as a portable media player (e.g., an electronic text reader, anaudio device, or a portable gaming, exercise, or navigation device); aportable communication device (e.g., a camera, a phone, a wearable or atext chatting device); a workstation; and/or a laptop form factorcomputer. The respective client devices 110 may communicate with theservice 102 via various connections to the wide area network 108. As afirst such example, one or more client devices 110 may comprise acellular communicator and may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a cellular provider. As a second such example,one or more client devices 110 may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a location such as the user's home or workplace(e.g., a WiFi (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)Standard 802.11) network or a Bluetooth (IEEE Standard 802.15.1)personal area network). In this manner, the servers 104 and the clientdevices 110 may communicate over various types of networks. Other typesof networks that may be accessed by the servers 104 and/or clientdevices 110 include mass storage, such as network attached storage(NAS), a storage area network (SAN), or other forms of computer ormachine readable media.

1.2. Server Configuration

FIG. 2 presents a schematic architecture diagram 200 of a server 104that may utilize at least a portion of the techniques provided herein.Such a server 104 may vary widely in configuration or capabilities,alone or in conjunction with other servers, in order to provide aservice such as the service 102.

The server 104 may comprise one or more processors 210 that processinstructions. The one or more processors 210 may optionally include aplurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as a mathematicscoprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit (GPU); and/or oneor more layers of local cache memory. The server 104 may comprise memory202 storing various forms of applications, such as an operating system204; one or more server applications 206, such as a hypertext transportprotocol (HTTP) server, a file transfer protocol (FTP) server, or asimple mail transport protocol (SMTP) server; and/or various forms ofdata, such as a database 208 or a file system. The server 104 maycomprise a variety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/orwireless network adapter 214 connectible to a local area network and/orwide area network; one or more storage components 216, such as a harddisk drive, a solid-state storage device (SSD), a flash memory device,and/or a magnetic and/or optical disk reader.

The server 104 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 212 that interconnect the processor 210, the memory202, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol; aUniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. In a multibus scenario, a communicationbus 212 may interconnect the server 104 with at least one other server.Other components that may optionally be included with the server 104(though not shown in the schematic architecture diagram 200 of FIG. 2)include a display; a display adapter, such as a graphical processingunit (GPU); input peripherals, such as a keyboard and/or mouse; and aflash memory device that may store a basic input/output system (BIOS)routine that facilitates booting the server 104 to a state of readiness.

The server 104 may operate in various physical enclosures, such as adesktop or tower, and/or may be integrated with a display as an“all-in-one” device. The server 104 may be mounted horizontally and/orin a cabinet or rack, and/or may simply comprise an interconnected setof components. The server 104 may comprise a dedicated and/or sharedpower supply 218 that supplies and/or regulates power for the othercomponents. The server 104 may provide power to and/or receive powerfrom another server and/or other devices. The server 104 may comprise ashared and/or dedicated climate control unit 220 that regulates climateproperties, such as temperature, humidity, and/or airflow. Many suchservers 104 may be configured and/or adapted to utilize at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

1.3. Client Device Configuration

FIG. 3 presents a schematic architecture diagram 300 of a client device110 whereupon at least a portion of the techniques presented herein maybe implemented. Such a client device 110 may vary widely inconfiguration or capabilities, in order to provide a variety offunctionality to a user such as the user 112. The client device 110 maybe provided in a variety of form factors, such as a desktop or towerworkstation; an “all-in-one” device integrated with a display 308; alaptop, tablet, convertible tablet, or palmtop device; a wearable devicemountable in a headset, eyeglass, earpiece, and/or wristwatch, and/orintegrated with an article of clothing; and/or a component of a piece offurniture, such as a tabletop, and/or of another device, such as avehicle or residence. The client device 110 may serve the user in avariety of roles, such as a workstation, kiosk, media player, gamingdevice, and/or appliance.

The client device 110 may comprise one or more processors 310 thatprocess instructions. The one or more processors 310 may optionallyinclude a plurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as amathematics coprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit(GPU); and/or one or more layers of local cache memory. The clientdevice 110 may comprise memory 301 storing various forms ofapplications, such as an operating system 303; one or more userapplications 302, such as document applications, media applications,file and/or data access applications, communication applications such asweb browsers and/or email clients, utilities, and/or games; and/ordrivers for various peripherals. The client device 110 may comprise avariety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/or wirelessnetwork adapter 306 connectible to a local area network and/or wide areanetwork; one or more output components, such as a display 308 coupledwith a display adapter (optionally including a graphical processing unit(GPU)), a sound adapter coupled with a speaker, and/or a printer; inputdevices for receiving input from the user, such as a keyboard 311, amouse, a microphone, a camera, and/or a touch-sensitive component of thedisplay 308; and/or environmental sensors, such as a global positioningsystem (GPS) receiver 319 that detects the location, velocity, and/oracceleration of the client device 110, a compass, accelerometer, and/orgyroscope that detects a physical orientation of the client device 110.Other components that may optionally be included with the client device110 (though not shown in the schematic architecture diagram 300 of FIG.3) include one or more storage components, such as a hard disk drive, asolid-state storage device (SSD), a flash memory device, and/or amagnetic and/or optical disk reader; and/or a flash memory device thatmay store a basic input/output system (BIOS) routine that facilitatesbooting the client device 110 to a state of readiness; and a climatecontrol unit that regulates climate properties, such as temperature,humidity, and airflow.

The client device 110 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 312 that interconnect the processor 310, the memory301, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol;the Uniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or the Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. The client device 110 may comprise adedicated and/or shared power supply 318 that supplies and/or regulatespower for other components, and/or a battery 304 that stores power foruse while the client device 110 is not connected to a power source viathe power supply 318. The client device 110 may provide power to and/orreceive power from other client devices.

In some scenarios, as a user 112 interacts with a software applicationon a client device 110 (e.g., an instant messenger and/or electronicmail application), descriptive content in the form of signals or storedphysical states within memory (e.g., an email address, instant messengeridentifier, phone number, postal address, message content, date, and/ortime) may be identified. Descriptive content may be stored, typicallyalong with contextual content. For example, the source of a phone number(e.g., a communication received from another user via an instantmessenger application) may be stored as contextual content associatedwith the phone number. Contextual content, therefore, may identifycircumstances surrounding receipt of a phone number (e.g., the date ortime that the phone number was received), and may be associated withdescriptive content. Contextual content, may, for example, be used tosubsequently search for associated descriptive content. For example, asearch for phone numbers received from specific individuals, receivedvia an instant messenger application or at a given date or time, may beinitiated. The client device 110 may include one or more servers thatmay locally serve the client device 110 and/or other client devices ofthe user 112 and/or other individuals. For example, a locally installedwebserver may provide web content in response to locally submitted webrequests. Many such client devices 110 may be configured and/or adaptedto utilize at least a portion of the techniques presented herein. 2.Presented Techniques

One or more computing devices and/or techniques for hosting virtual chatrooms for a chat room are provided. A user may access a video through avideo interface. A chat room may be provided to the user through a chatroom interface for discussing the video with other users watching thevideo. Unfortunately, as the number of users watching the video grow,the chat room may become overwhelming due to the number of users postingmessages through the chat room. For example, messages may scroll so fastthat the user is unable to read or follow messages of a conversation.Thus, the user may be unable to engage in meaningful conversationbecause messages of the user may scroll too fast for other users toview. The chat room may lag from the amount of resources (e.g., networkbandwidth and computing resources of a client device, a server hostingthe chat room, etc.) necessary to receive, process, send, and/or displaymessages through chat room interfaces (e.g., a client device may beunable to receive hundreds of messages every few seconds over a networkand update the chat room interface without lag). Thus, users of the chatroom may be unable to have meaningful interaction. Accordingly, asprovided herein, the chat room may be sharded into a set of virtual chatrooms (e.g., 50,000 users of the chat room may be split into virtualchat rooms of 100 users each) so that the users may have more meaningfulinteractions without undue lag from inadequate resources otherwiseneeded to process a burdensome amount of messages through chat roominterfaces (e.g., bandwidth, memory, and/or other computing resources ofa client device may be unable to adequately process and display messagesof the 50,000 users through a chat room interface without significantlag or other issues).

In an example, a chat room may correspond to an overall grouping ofusers for which messaging functionality is to be provided through chatroom interfaces associated with a particular video being accessed bysuch users. Thus, messages generated by such users may be processed bydata structures and/or chat room functionality of the chat room. Insteadof displaying all messages generated by the users of the chat roomthrough the chat room interfaces, the chat room is sharded into virtualchat rooms (e.g., a grouping of users assigned to a virtual chat room)so that merely messages of users assigned to a particular virtual chatroom are displayed through chat room interfaces accessed by thoseassigned users. Thus, the virtual chat room corresponds to a subsetgrouping of users where messages generated by users of the chat roomthat are not assigned to the virtual chat room are filtered out so thatonly messages generated by users assigned to the virtual chat room aredisplayed through chat room interfaces accessed by those assigned users.

An embodiment of hosting virtual chat rooms for a chat room isillustrated by an example method 400 of FIG. 4. At 402, users accessingvideo interfaces, hosting a video, and chat room interfaces associatedwith a chat room for the video may be identified. For example, a usermay access a website hosting a video interface through which a liveconcert video is being streamed. The website may host a chat interfacethrough which the user may communicate with other users watching theconcert. At 404, signals, associated with the users, may be evaluated toidentify user properties of the users. The signals may comprise socialnetwork data of the user (e.g., posts by the user, interests of theuser, contacts of the user, etc.), a user account of the user (e.g., anage, a place of residence, etc.), locational information from a clientdevice of the user, previous user interactions with chat rooms or othercontent (e.g., websites visited by the user, content shared by the userthrough a social network, etc.), etc. Various techniques, such as imagerecognition, text recognition, feature extract, and/or other signal orcontent processing techniques may be used to identify user propertiesfrom the signals (e.g., image recognition may evaluate a photo shared bythe user through a social network to identify an activity beingperformed by the user such as playing soccer for identifying a soccerinterest user property). The user may take affirmative action, such asproviding opt-in consent, to allow access to and/or use of signals(e.g., a web browsing history, a user calendar, device sensorinformation such as camera data or global positioning system (GPS) data,a contact list, a user account profile, etc.), such as for the purposeof identifying user properties used to assign the user to virtual chatrooms (e.g., where the user responds to a prompt regarding thecollection and/or use of such information). The user may also opt-outfrom providing access to such information and/or data or portionsthereof (e.g., access may be provided to a user account maintained witha service that hosts the website, but not to a calendar of the user).

A user property may be indicative of the user being an activeparticipant (e.g., the user generates a threshold number of messageswithin a timespan, such as averaging 0.4 or more messages per minute),the user being a passive participant (e.g., the user generates less thanthe threshold number of messages within the timespan), a user interest(e.g., a user social network post indicates that the user is an advocateof animal rights), a user age (e.g., the user is a teenager), a userlocation (e.g., locational information of a mobile device carried by theuser may indicate that the user is located in a particular part of acity), a user chat room topic preference (e.g., the user frequentlyparticipates in animal topic chat rooms), user contacts (e.g., contactsand friends of the user within a contacts list), user responses tokeywords (e.g., the user responds with certain words indicative of angerwhen reading messages with certain keywords such as “hunting” or“ivory”), the user's usages of keywords (e.g., the user frequentlywrites messages with the term “funding”), user engagement with one ormore additional chat rooms (e.g., the user is routinely a passiveparticipant in videogame chat rooms), user engagement with one or moreadditional videos, and/or other information indicative of how the useris likely to interact within chat rooms with certain topics and/or otherusers.

At 406, the chat room may be sharded (e.g., partitioned) into a set ofvirtual chat rooms. In an example, the chat room may be sharded basedupon a virtual chat room occupancy metric. For example, if the virtualchat room occupancy metric specifies a maximum number of users for avirtual chat rooms as 100 or any other number, then the chat room may besharded into virtual chat rooms with no more than 100 users (e.g., ifthere are 50,000 users accessing the video, then the chat room may besharded into 5,000 virtual chat rooms). In an example, the chat room maybe sharded and/or users may be assigned to virtual chat rooms based upona percentage of active participants and a percentage of passiveparticipants (e.g., a virtual chat room may be defined to have acomposition of 14% or any other percentage of active participants and86% or any other percentage of passive participants so that the virtualchat room is not overwhelmed by messages from too many activeparticipants or is too quiet or uninteresting due to too many passiveparticipants).

At 408, the users may be assigned to virtual chat rooms based upon theuser properties. In an example, users may be assigned based upon userproperties indicative of whether such users are passive participants oractive participants so that a virtual chat room has a desiredcomposition of passive participants and active participants. In anotherexample, a first user and a second user may be assigned to the virtualchat room based upon the first user and the second user havingpreviously interacted (e.g., the first user and the second user attendedthe same school, are contacts of one another, are social networkfriends, have messaged one another within a chat room, etc.). In anotherexample, a first user and a second user may be assigned to the virtualchat room based upon the first user and the second user sharing a userinterest (e.g., a first user property of the first user and a seconduser property of the second user may indicate that both users have aninterest in discussing how to best protect endangered wildlife). It maybe appreciated that users may be assigned to the same or differentvirtual chat rooms based upon various properties, such as two usersliving within a threshold distance of one another or users being withinan age range threshold of one another.

At 410, responsive to a user being assigned to a virtual chat room, theuser may be provided with access to the virtual chat room through a chatroom interface accessed by the user. In an example, the chat roominterface may be populated with chat room information corresponding tothe chat room (e.g., the chat room interface may display a total numberof users assigned to all the virtual chat rooms, such as the 50,000users, as opposed to just statistics of the virtual chat room), whichmay give the user the appearance as though the user is interacting withmore than just the users assigned to same virtual chat room as the user.Messages of the chat room (e.g., messages of the 50,000 users) may befiltered for display through the chat room interface based upon messagesof users that are assigned to the virtual chat room (e.g., the user maymerely see messages from the other 99 users assigned to the same virtualchat room).

Users may be reassigned between virtual chat rooms for various reasons.In an example, activity within the virtual chat room may be monitored. Asecond user may be reassigned from a second virtual chat room to thevirtual chat room based upon the activity. For example, the activity maybe indicative of user message activity, of users assigned to the virtualchat room, being below a threshold, and thus the second user (e.g., anactive participant that creates a threshold number of messages within acertain timespan) may be assigned to the virtual chat room to increaseuser message activity. Similarly, if too much user message activity isoccurring within the virtual chat room which may be overwhelming forusers, then an active participant of the virtual chat room may bereassigned to a different virtual chat room. User message activity maybe determined based upon a length and/or number of messages being postedto the virtual chat room.

In another example, user activity of the user within the virtual chatroom may be monitored (e.g., keywords used by the user, reactions byother users to messages posted by the user, a length and/or number ofmessages posted by the user, whether the user is scrolling back throughmessages to read them or is not interacting with the chat room interfacesuch as where a different user interface is active, etc.). The user maybe reassigned from the virtual chat room to a second virtual chat roombased upon the user activity. For example, the user may be reassignedbased upon the user activity being indicative of a deviation in userbehavior from a predicted user behavior (e.g., the user may have beeninitially identified as being an active participant but may actually bea passive participant that has not posted a message within 10 minutes).In an example, the user may be reassigned based upon the user activitybeing indicative of the user generating messages identified as having anegative social dynamic impact upon the virtual chat room (e.g., theuser is using certain keywords, profanity, or other message content thatmay illicit negative responses from other users or may offend otherusers). In another example, users may be reassigned from the virtualchat room to a second virtual chat room based upon an occupancy of thesecond virtual chat room falling below an occupancy threshold.

In an example, a new user accessing a video interface hosting the videomay be identified. Signals of the new users may be evaluated to identifyuser properties of the new user. The new user may be assigned to thevirtual chat room based upon the user properties of the new user (e.g.,the new user may be assigned to the virtual chat room based upon the newuser having previously interacted with other users assigned to thevirtual chat room) and the virtual chat room having an occupancy notexceeding an occupancy threshold.

In an example, a new user accessing a video interface hosting the videomay be identified. The new user may be assigned to a testing virtualchat room (e.g., because little to no signals of the new users areavailable to identify user properties of the new user). User activity ofthe new user within the testing virtual chat room may be monitored toidentify a user property of the new user (e.g., the new user may be anactive participant that uses complete sentences and proper grammar). Thenew user may be assigned to the virtual chat room based upon the userproperty (e.g., the new user may be added as another active participantfor the virtual chat room in order to achieve a desired percentagecomposition of active participants for the virtual chat room; otherusers within the virtual chat room may use complete sentences and propergrammar, which may be desired by the new user; etc.)

In an example, user activity of the user within the virtual chat roommay be monitored to create a user chat room activity signal. The userchat room activity signal may be stored for subsequent evaluation foridentifying user properties of the user. Responsive to the useraccessing a second virtual interface, hosting a second video, and asecond chat room interface associated with a second chat room for thesecond video, the user may be assigned to a second virtual chat room forthe second chat room based upon the user chat room activity signal.

FIGS. 5A-5F illustrate examples of a system 500 for hosting virtual chatrooms for a chat room. FIG. 5A illustrates a chat room provider 501 thatmay be configured to provide users with access to a chat room 502through which the users may discuss a video. For example, a first usermay use a first client device 512 to access an e-sports video (e.g.,users playing a competitive videogame) through a first video interface514 (e.g., of an e-sports webpage). A first chat room interface 516 maybe provided for the e-sports video (e.g., also displayed within thewebpage). In this way, a plurality of users may access video interfaces,hosting the e-sports video, and chat room interfaces associated with achat room for the e-sports video, such as an nth user using an nthclient device 518 to access the e-sports video through an nth videointerface 520 and an nth chat room interface 522 for the e-sports video.

The chat room provider 501 may identify the users accessing the videointerfaces and the chat interfaces (e.g., users accessing the sportswebpage). The chat room provider 501 may evaluate signals 506 (e.g.,social network data, user account profiles, previous chat rooms accessedby users, previous videos or other content consumed by users, messageswritten by users, user interests, user ages, user locations, etc.) ofthe users to identify user properties 508 of the users (e.g., a user maybe an active chat room participant that is an avid race car videogamegamer located within San Francisco).

The chat room 502 may be sharded into a set of virtual chat rooms 504(e.g., the chat room 502 of 3,000 users may be sharded into 300 virtualchat rooms with 100 users per virtual chat room). The users may beassigned 510 to virtual chat rooms based upon the user properties 508.For example, the first user may be assigned to a first virtual chatroom. The first user may be provided with access to the first virtualchat room through the first chat room interface 516 (e.g., messages ofthe 3,000 users may be filtered such that the first chat room interface516 merely displays messages of other users assigned to the firstvirtual chat room). The nth user may be assigned to a second virtualchat room. The second user may be provided with access to the secondvirtual chat room through the nth chat room interface 222 (e.g.,messages of the 3,000 users may be filtered such that the nth chat roominterface 222 merely displays messages of other users assigned to thesecond virtual chat room).

FIG. 5B illustrates user activity 530 of the first user within the firstvirtual chat room being monitored. For example, the first user may havebeen assigned to the first virtual chat room as an active participant.However, the user activity 530 may indicate that the first user is notinteracting with the other users of the first virtual chat room.Accordingly, the first user may be re-categorized as a passiveparticipant, and reassigned 532 from the first virtual chat room to athird virtual chat room that would provide improved chat room userexperience having another passive participant (e.g., the first chat roominterface 516 may be updated to display messages of the third virtualchat room, resulting in an updated first chat room interface 534).

FIG. 5C illustrates the nth user being reassigned 540 from the secondvirtual chat room to a fifth virtual chat room based upon a friend ofthe nth user recently joining the fifth virtual chat room. The nth chatroom interface 522 may be updated to display messages of the fifthvirtual chat room, resulting in an updated nth chat room interface 542.In this way, users may be dynamically reassigned between virtual chatrooms based upon up-to-date virtual chat room information (e.g., anumber of active participants, a number of passive participants, acurrent total number of assigned users, a number of messages beingposted to a virtual chat room, content of messages being posted to thevirtual chat room, etc.).

FIG. 5D illustrates a new user using a new client device 550 to accessthe e-sports video through a new first video interface 552. The new usermay be assigned to a testing virtual chat room within which users aremonitored to identify user properties of such user, such as the use ofproper grammar, use of explicit language, use of long or shortsentences, a number of messages per minute generated, user interests ordemographic information described by the user through messages, etc. Thenew user may be provided with access to the testing virtual chat roomthrough a testing chat room interface 554. FIG. 5E illustrates new useractivity of the new user being monitored 560 to identify a user propertyof the new user. For example, the new user may be a very activeparticipant (e.g., the new user created 2 messages per minute) that is aself-proclaimed gamming expert (e.g., features of a message generated bythe user may indicate that the user describes herself as a gammingexpert). FIG. 5F illustrates the new user being assigned 570 to a sixthvirtual chat room based upon the sixth virtual chat room having one ormore other users that are gamming experts and the sixth virtual chatroom having less than a desired amount of active participants. Thetesting chat room interface 554 may be updated to display messages ofthe sixth virtual chat room, resulting in an updated chat room interface572.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of a scenario 600 involving an examplenon-transitory machine readable medium 602. The non-transitory machinereadable medium 602 may comprise processor-executable instructions 612that when executed by a processor 616 cause performance (e.g., by theprocessor 616) of at least some of the provisions herein. Thenon-transitory machine readable medium 602 may comprise a memorysemiconductor (e.g., a semiconductor utilizing static random accessmemory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or synchronousdynamic random access memory (SDRAM) technologies), a platter of a harddisk drive, a flash memory device, or a magnetic or optical disc (suchas a compact disk (CD), a digital versatile disk (DVD), or floppy disk).The example non-transitory machine readable medium 602 storescomputer-readable data 604 that, when subjected to reading 606 by areader 610 of a device 608 (e.g., a read head of a hard disk drive, or aread operation invoked on a solid-state storage device), express theprocessor-executable instructions 612. In some embodiments, theprocessor-executable instructions 612, when executed cause performanceof operations, such as at least some of the example method 400 of FIG.4, for example. In some embodiments, the processor-executableinstructions 612 are configured to cause implementation of a system,such as at least some of the example system 500 of FIGS. 5A-5F, forexample.

3. Usage of Terms

As used in this application, “component,” “module,” “system”,“interface”, and/or the like are generally intended to refer to acomputer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware andsoftware, software, or software in execution. For example, a componentmay be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, aprocessor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program,and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application runningon a controller and the controller can be a component. One or morecomponents may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and acomponent may be localized on one computer and/or distributed betweentwo or more computers.

Unless specified otherwise, “first,” “second,” and/or the like are notintended to imply a temporal aspect, a spatial aspect, an ordering, etc.Rather, such terms are merely used as identifiers, names, etc. forfeatures, elements, items, etc. For example, a first object and a secondobject generally correspond to object A and object B or two different ortwo identical objects or the same object.

Moreover, “example” is used herein to mean serving as an example,instance, illustration, etc., and not necessarily as advantageous. Asused herein, “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than anexclusive “or”. In addition, “a” and “an” as used in this applicationare generally be construed to mean “one or more” unless specifiedotherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form. Also,at least one of A and B and/or the like generally means A or B or both Aand B. Furthermore, to the extent that “includes”, “having”, “has”,“with”, and/or variants thereof are used in either the detaileddescription or the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in amanner similar to the term “comprising”.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above.Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed asexample forms of implementing at least some of the claims.

Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method,apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/orengineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosedsubject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein isintended to encompass a computer program accessible from anycomputer-readable device, carrier, or media. Of course, manymodifications may be made to this configuration without departing fromthe scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.

Various operations of embodiments are provided herein. In an embodiment,one or more of the operations described may constitute computer readableinstructions stored on one or more computer readable media, which ifexecuted by a computing device, will cause the computing device toperform the operations described. The order in which some or all of theoperations are described should not be construed as to imply that theseoperations are necessarily order dependent. Alternative ordering will beappreciated by one skilled in the art having the benefit of thisdescription. Further, it will be understood that not all operations arenecessarily present in each embodiment provided herein. Also, it will beunderstood that not all operations are necessary in some embodiments.

Also, although the disclosure has been shown and described with respectto one or more implementations, equivalent alterations and modificationswill occur to others skilled in the art based upon a reading andunderstanding of this specification and the annexed drawings. Thedisclosure includes all such modifications and alterations and islimited only by the scope of the following claims. In particular regardto the various functions performed by the above described components(e.g., elements, resources, etc.), the terms used to describe suchcomponents are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, toany component which performs the specified function of the describedcomponent (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though notstructurally equivalent to the disclosed structure. In addition, while aparticular feature of the disclosure may have been disclosed withrespect to only one of several implementations, such feature may becombined with one or more other features of the other implementations asmay be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: identifying computingdevices of users accessing video interfaces rendering a video ondisplays of the computing devices and chat room interfaces associatedwith a chat room for the video, wherein electronic transmissions of dataof the video and the chat room are received by the computing devicesover a computer network; evaluating signals associated with the users toidentify user properties of the users; sharding the chat room into a setof virtual chat rooms; assigning the users to virtual chat rooms of theset of virtual chat rooms based upon the user properties, wherein theassigning comprises assigning one or more users to a virtual chat roombased upon a percentage of active participants and a percentage ofpassive participants of the virtual chat room; and responsive to a userbeing assigned to the virtual chat room, providing a computing device ofthe user with access to the virtual chat room through a chat roominterface accessed by the computing device of the user over the computernetwork, wherein the chat room interface is rendered on a display of thecomputing device.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the shardingcomprises: sharding the chat room based upon a virtual chat roomoccupancy metric.
 3. The method of claim 1, comprising: monitoringactivity within the virtual chat room.
 4. The method of claim 1,comprising: determining that the user is an active participant basedupon the user generating a threshold amount of messages within atimespan.
 5. The method of claim 3, comprising: reassigning a seconduser from a second virtual chat room to the virtual chat room based uponthe activity.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the activity isindicative of user message activity, of users assigned to the virtualchat room, being below a threshold.
 7. The method of claim 1, whereinthe user properties comprise a user property corresponding to userengagement with one or more additional chat rooms.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the user properties comprise a user propertycorresponding to user engagement with one or more additional videos. 9.The method of claim 1, wherein the user properties comprise a userproperty corresponding to an active participant.
 10. The method of claim1, wherein the user properties comprise a user property corresponding toat least one of a user interest, a user age, a user location, user chatroom topic preferences, user contacts, user responses to keywords, oruser usage of keywords.
 11. The method of claim 1, comprising: assigninga first user and a second user to the virtual chat room based upon thefirst user and the second user having previously interacted.
 12. Themethod of claim 1, comprising: assigning a first user and a second userto the virtual chat room based upon the first user and the second usersharing a user interest.
 13. The method of claim 1, comprising:assigning a first user and a second user to the virtual chat room basedupon at least one of the first user and the second user being locatedwithin a threshold distance of one another or the first user and thesecond user being within an age range threshold of one another.
 14. Themethod of claim 1, comprising: reassigning the user from the virtualchat room to a second virtual chat room based upon an occupancy of thesecond virtual chat room falling below an occupancy threshold.
 15. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the providing the computing device of theuser with access to the virtual chat room comprises: populating the chatroom interface with chat room information corresponding to the chatroom; and filtering messages of the chat room for display through thechat room interface based upon messages of users that are assigned tothe virtual chat room.
 16. The method of claim 1, comprising:identifying a new user accessing a video interface hosting the video;evaluating signals of the new user to identify user properties of thenew user; and assigning the new user to the virtual chat room based uponthe user properties of the new user and the virtual chat room having anoccupancy not exceeding an occupancy threshold.
 17. The method of claim1, comprising: identifying a new user accessing a video interfacehosting the video; assigning the new user to a testing virtual chatroom; monitoring user activity of the new user within the testingvirtual chat room to identify a user property of the new user; andassigning the new user to the virtual chat room based upon the userproperty.
 18. The method of claim 1, comprising: monitoring useractivity of the user within the virtual chat room to create a user chatroom activity signal; storing the user chat room activity signal; andresponsive to identifying the user accessing a second virtual interface,hosting a second video, and a second chat room interface associated witha second chat room for the second video, assigning the user to a secondvirtual chat room for the second chat room based upon the user chat roomactivity signal.
 19. A computer device comprising: a processor; andmemory comprising processor-executable instructions that when executedby the processor cause performance of operations, the operationscomprising: identifying computing devices of users accessing videointerfaces rendering a video on displays of the computing devices andchat room interfaces associated a chat room for the video, whereinelectronic transmissions of data of the video and the chat room arereceived by the computing devices over a computer network; evaluatingsignals associated with the users to label the users as either beingactive participants or passive participants; sharding the chat room intoa set of virtual chat rooms; assigning the users to virtual chat roomsof the set of virtual chat rooms, wherein a percentage of activeparticipants and a percentage of passive participants are assigned to avirtual chat room; and responsive to a user being assigned to thevirtual chat room, providing a computing device of the user with accessto the virtual chat room through a chat room interface accessed by thecomputing device of the user over the computer network, wherein the chatroom interface is rendered on a display of the computing device, whereinthe computer device transmits data of the virtual chat room to thecomputing device over the computer network.
 20. A non-transitory machinereadable medium having stored thereon processor-executable instructionsthat when executed cause performance of operations, the operationscomprising: identifying computing devices of users accessing videointerfaces rendering a video on displays of the computing devices andchat room interfaces associated a chat room for the video, whereinelectronic transmissions of data of the video and the chat room arereceived by the computing devices over a computer network; sharding thechat room into a set of virtual chat rooms; assigning a new user to avirtual chat room; monitoring user activity of the new user within thevirtual chat room; assigning the new user to a second virtual chat roomof the set of virtual chat rooms based upon the user activity; andproviding a computing device of the new user with access to the secondvirtual chat room through a chat room interface accessed by thecomputing device of the new user over the computer network, wherein thechat room interface is rendered on a display of the computing device.